


Death of the War Gods

by Kypros



Series: Anima [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Drinking & Talking, Drinking to Cope, M/M, Male Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Post-War, Reconciliation, Recovery, Strained Relationships, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 16:50:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5833159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kypros/pseuds/Kypros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the absence of conflict, there are always those who are lost to peace. Post-war, Tenzou struggles to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Death of the War Gods

**Author's Note:**

> I've taken the creative liberties in assuming that at one point in time, Genma was part of the ANBU. Tenzou needs more friends and Genma is one of them.

April was when they found him. It was a cold and rainy day when a scouting squad happened to stumble across his body and with a desperate sort of tenacity, they freed him from the crumbling remains of the wall, eager to report their findings. Tenzou, for the most part, did not remember any of it. He slipped in and out of lingering consciousness, all to varying degrees of alertness, but he was altogether too certain that he was perhaps dead. He also believed with a certain degree of correctness that perhaps all of what he is experiencing was nothing but a dream.

His first acute moments of real consciousness in many months however, occurred when he woke up in a field hospital near Suna no Kuni only to find out that the war was over. He could not remember how he reacted to this news, although there was a jagged awareness within him of something akin to disinterest. Yes, the war had been won, but he himself was barely alive. The shuffle of medic-nin had indicated something peculiar about his condition, but by the time he had reached the safety of Konohagakure and its idle wooden walls, most of what had been relayed to him had been lost to bureaucratic shuffle of paperwork and the fuzziness of his own mind.

Now, he was realizing that his latest stint of unconsciousness has lasted nearly twelve hours. It seemed that no matter what he could not get enough precious sleep. He was all too tired, all the time, and the fact that he had spent nearly the entirety of the war in a remissive state akin to a coma did not lessen his desire to close his eyes and simply slip back into the void. Still, when he came to realize the late hour of the morning, he frowned and forced himself to sit up, the starch laden albeit sterile sheets of the hospital bed scratching uncomfortably at his bare thighs.

Next to the bed was a cup of water, which he sipped from quietly before setting it back down and slipping back beneath the sheets. He realized that he has grown to detest the hospital in the same way that he had grown to detest the white spaces of his mind that he had occupied in his dreamless state during the war. For beyond carrying his own thoughts through to quiet reflection, there was little to do while he made his recovery and he found himself growing bored. The days he has spent incapacitated passed slowly and he was not sure how much time had lapsed since he had found himself back within the safety of the village, although to what degree they were actually safe was questionable. For things, he thought dourly, never changed. And while they had won the war, Tenzou did not know at what cost.

But _wait_ —he did know.

He found himself sighing. With some degree of bitterness, he thought of Naruto. His former student was now being praised above all else for his new brand of shinobi ethos, as if his degree of enthusiasm would somehow save them all from future conflict. Tenzou knew that it wouldn’t, and quietly he remembered how Kakashi had once told him that each generation of shinobi was unlike any other. This generation—the new generation—dutifully carried that notion on their sleeves. And while Naruto was held high as a beacon of hope in an otherwise sunless future, Tenzou, in his age and perhaps cynicism, speculated that each and every one of them—every child and mother, every father and brother, every shinobi carrying a smile held in place by the blade of kunai—were all the same. That every one of them, while guided by a long line of shinobi values, was nothing but akin to a staircase. He supposed that Kakashi had been right in a sense, because while each generation was a step raised above unlike any other before it, all of them were going in the same direction. And after twenty-seven years of wondering, he finally knew where the staircase went.

Shifting beneath the sheets, he blinked.

His lengthy stay in the hospital had afforded him much time to think and he knew that after much consideration that if he could, he would shout at Kakashi and tell him that he was all wrong—that this new generation was not unlike any other—they were all the same, dammit, and that his aloof ideologies were all askew!

Or perhaps he was just being bitter.

Tenzou had returned from the war to find that most of his friends were now dead. The staircase, as it were, was never ending. And despite Naruto’s proclamations of peace (oh, that silly boy) Tenzou was sure that the old shinobi ways were still alive and breathing. Their values coursed through each and every one of their veins like blood. Values, that to Tenzou, now felt like dust settling in his arteries.

Unwillingly, his thoughts turned to Kakashi again, and in discomfort he shifted beneath the weight of the scratchy sheets. The man hasn’t visited him since he’d been rescued from captivity, and while he supposed that it wasn’t his fault—he had certain duties now that were far beyond paying heed to Tenzou’s boredom as he lay bedridden—regardless, his mouth screwed into a bitter half-scowl. Nothing changed. Nothing ever did and things between them were still the same as ever.

In his younger years, during his fledging tenure in the service of the ANBU, he thought to how he had held a childish crush for his former captain. It had been an emotional devotion that had been firmly cemented by overwhelming bouts of complacency and spells of denial. When Kakashi had finally resigned from the position as their team leader, it had understandably been a blow to Tenzou’s sensibilities. As a member of Team Ro he had thought that perhaps towards the end he should have seen the man’s retirement coming. He hadn’t—nobody on the team had—but that fact alone couldn’t stop the helpless anger and despair that had rushed through him upon waking up and finding out that Kakashi had left the corp without so much as a goodbye.

Shocked and dumbfounded, the departure of their captain made Tenzou realize that he had never had the slightest chance with the older man. In misery, he regretted falling in half-love with him (he would never admit to more, not even to himself) and his rare, wonderful smiles. The silliness, however, would come to a standstill. The reality was that there had never been anything between them beyond comradery, and Tenzou, foolish and naïve—a mere seventeen year old boy—had been inane enough to believe that Kakashi, in all his stoicism and withheld mannerisms, would have somehow returned his unprofessed feelings.

He did not, and while, yes, they had had sex, nothing had ever come of it.

Now, with his mind drifting back to the man whose presence had consumed his thoughts for nearly a decade, he realized that he would be lying to himself if he said that the crush had ever fully gone away. He knew that it always returned unwillingly, pricking him sharply in those brief moments when Kakashi showed him even the slightest amount of attention, only to disappear in fleeting evanescence during his perusal disappearances. The fact that he was now twenty-seven and still mildly infatuated with the man annoyed him greatly.

Enough however, was enough. It is time to move on—get married perhaps. Settle down with someone worth the effort. Begrudgingly, he sighed again.

It has been a long time coming, but he now knew that he must pry the enormous, uncontrollable mistake that was his adoration for an unattainable man out of his chest. He needed to remove all small twitches birthed by Kakashi’s rare smiles from the muscle memory of his shoulder blades. It was such a lovely smile…he was going to forget that smile. He truly was.

Shifting again, he rolled over and pulled the scratchy sheets high around his neck. He had only just woken up, but he felt an undue tiredness settling across the length of his body. The nurse would be in to check on him soon, he ruminated, although this knowledge did not stop him from closing his eyes.

\---

His apartment was unnaturally dark, with window blinds pulled shut and the uncovered surfaces of the kitchen counters and his kitchen table now home to a thin covering of settled dust. His fridge, as he noted quietly, was empty. The potted plants near the shaded windows were withered. On the table however was a small bouquet of flowers with a note from Sakura in neat handwriting, meant to welcome him home from his stay in the hospital.

Tenzou blinked slowly. In the apartment above him he could hear the plinking notes of his neighbour’s shamisen being played and across the hall, a dog barking. Somethings, he noted, had changed, some had not. There was no relief in this and with undue tiredness, he sighed. His legs felt stiff from all the time he had spent bedridden, and so haltingly, he made his way through the kitchen and across to the sitting room to open the white blinds ever so slightly. Light filtered in through the apartment, revealing the heavy presence of dust floating in the air.

What he wanted was a drink, something cold and harsh to ease him into an unnatural sleep. He contemplated a walk to the nearest market vendor, but his aching body thought better of it. Defeated, he walked to the kitchen sink and poured himself a glass of water instead.

The pipes rattled with a disturbing gurgle—their lack of use was apparent as air whistled through the tap, and finally, a trickle of water emerged. He let it run for a moment’s time before filling his glass and settled himself at the table, unsure of what to do next.

He was tired—that much, he was sure of—and despite the early hour in the evening, he contemplated going straight to bed. He took a sip of the water, and noticed it tasted stale. Then, without much thought, he poured the remainder of the glass into the flower arrangement on the tabletop in front of him. It was an arrangement of bright pink peonies with clusters of baby’s breath. At least, he thought wryly, they were not dead like the rest of his plants.

It was then that he heard a sound. He was quickly attuned to the creak of his front door knob rattling ever so slightly as the wooden structure slipped open slowly and finally, shut. Tenzou stood abruptly, and peered beyond the kitchen to see a familiar face, adorned neatly in standard navy jounin attire. In his hands was a brown paper bag. Tenzou frowned. The man at the door, who appeared unfazed by Tenzou’s abrupt change in demeanor, smiled back, cheeks visibly rounded beneath the contours of his mask.

_Kakashi._

In that exact moment, Tenzou didn’t understand a lot of things, too numerous to list, such as Kakashi’s smile, or the brown paper bag in his hand that appeared to be dripping some sort of liquid onto the dusty wood floors of his small apartment. What he did recognize however was the inundated sense of panic he appeared to be experiencing, as the sight of Kakashi that had suddenly left him completely—

Something. He was suddenly and completely something that he could not name. Unwittingly, he blinked and tried to find his voice.

“I brought you ramen, courtesy of Naruto—,” Kakashi’s voice broke Tenzou from his trance and his eyes were quickly brought back to leaking brown paper bag. “Although I’ve appeared to have spilled it a little on the way over though. I figured you wouldn’t have much to eat in your apartment,” Kakashi continued on, eyes crinkling into mischievous half-moons. Tenzou’s internal turmoil appeared oblivious to him, and all he could do was blink for a second time.

Tenzou’s lungs however felt like as though they were stiffening into cardboard and his throat felt tight with the words he had swallowed in quiet distemper during his stint in the hospital.

_He was going to forget that smile._

Tenzou frowned.

Without realizing it, his fingers had curled into balled fists and the thick heat in his gut had somehow compacted itself into an uncontrollable conflagration that set his senses ablaze. Exhausted however, he could do nothing more than find his voice, hidden deep beneath a muddled tongue, and speak.

“I’m very tired senpai, but you can thank Naruto for the noodles.”

Momentarily, Kakashi’s smile faded—a confused look on his face was only indicated by a brief shifting of the fabric of his mask, his eyes slipping into contoured slits before Kakashi set down the soggy paper bag down onto the kitchen counter next to the sink. Then, he pulled down the fabric that was obscuring his mouth.

“Mah, Tenzou—you’re angry with me, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. Kakashi made his way further into Tenzou’s apartment, and Tenzou found himself across from the man, divided by the low set wooden table that now marked the space between them. Pointedly, Tenzou chose to ignore Kakashi’s remark and picked up the empty glass from the table. Wordlessly, he then returned it to the sink.

“I was about to go to sleep,” Tenzou managed to remark, running the water once again to clean out the empty glass. “I haven’t slept properly in over a month.” This in part, was not a lie—the bed at the hospital was far from comfortable, and Tenzou craved the luxury of his own well-worn mattress, dust and all. What he also craved more was for Kakashi to disappear. His presence at the moment was far from welcomed. 

In his mind, Tenzou had not prepared himself for this moment. He knew with an acute certainty he would have to see his former teammate again, but he had not pictured it in this exact manner. His mental image of meeting the man again was far from him bringing him a slightly soggy bag of noodles in the early hours of a quiet Thursday evening. Instead, he had imagined viewing Kakashi from afar, seeing him only briefly though masked mission assignments for the newest Hokage in a setting where there was no allowance for informalities such as these. Kakashi was not supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in his office, far away, and Tenzou was supposed to be alone in the quiet echelons of his dusty apartment.

“ _Tenzou_ …”

The man’s voice had taken on a softer tone and Tenzou bristled.

“What do you _want_ , Kakashi?” Tenzou snapped. The grip around the glass in his hand tightened and he stared steadfastly into the basin of the sink. He was tired. Not just physically, but emotionally. He was tired of their on-off relationship and Kakashi’s perpetual emotional unavailability and of his constant distancing and his _smile_ and just everything. Tenzou was tired and he wanted out.

Kakashi sighed and sat down on one of the chairs by the table. Silence ebbed between them and all Tenzou could do was shake his head. The clock on the wall ticked by in steady seconds and the tap in the sink dripped loudly into the steel basin.

“We looked for you,” Kakashi offered after an uncomfortable amount of time had passed. He was staring steadily at the vase of peonies on the kitchen tabletop. “We sent reconnaissance parties out for you and a lot of them didn’t come back. It wasn’t like we didn’t try.”

Tenzou swallowed thickly and said nothing. This was nothing he didn’t already know. He had been debriefed within the first few weeks of his hospital stay—green-eared chunin had come and gone with paperwork that Tenzou had numbly signed and understood with a staid awareness as to why they had eventually stopped looking for him. The war was a terrible thing and there were only so many resources that could be spared on a singular man.

“I know,” was all Tenzou offered in return.

Kakashi shifted in his chair as though he was suddenly made very uncomfortable by the situation but continued on.

“I sent Pakkun to look for you when the recon missions ceased.”

“He never found me,” Tenzou shot back uneasily.

“I know, I just wanted to let you know that I tried, Tenzou,” Kakashi finished softly.

Tenzou sat down at the table across from Kakashi and ran a tired hand through his messy hair. He needed Kakashi to leave. He didn’t want to hear these excuses. He didn’t want lists of reasons for why he was never rescued in the same way he didn’t want to hear what was coming next. It was all very methodical—Kakashi would have some wayward justification and apology for disappointing Tenzou, and like every other time in his life, he would forgive the man for his absenteeism. But not now.

“Tenzou, you can’t blame me for not rescuing you,” Kakashi spoke quietly when Tenzou did not respond. Again, Tenzou felt himself bristle.

“I’m not blaming you,” he replied curtly. “I’m not blaming anyone. I understand perfectly the situation I was in. Now please, senpai, I’m very tired and—,”

Kakashi abruptly cut him off.

“—why aren’t you making this easy for me?”

Tenzou blinked.

“I’m trying to say that I’m sorry, Tenzou—you don’t understand how worried I was and—,”

“— _Worried_?” Tenzou nearly laughed. “Yes—,”—the words were spat out evenly, albeit through a clenched jaw—“—because you were so worried that you didn’t even bother to visit me during my tenuous stay in the hospital.” A low blow—but the man’s absenteeism had stung nonetheless. He paused for a moment and shook his head before continuing on.

“Did you know that Genma came to visit me? _Genma_ , who I haven’t seen since we were in the ANBU. And you? Well you couldn’t even be bothered, although seeing as though I was half-dead from chakra exhaustion you would have visited me at the memorial if I had passed on, correct?”

His minute tirade appeared to have struck a nerve with Kakashi. He found the other man glaring, eyes heavy and awash with anger. Tenzou, defiant in his sensibilities, felt himself beginning to match.

“Is that really what you think?” Kakashi asked him quietly. His voice was small and tempered and Tenzou was acutely aware of its dangerous undertones. He didn’t care.

“Yes,” he let out evenly. “Because our relationship has never been anything but one-sided and we both know this,” he intoned. “Because you never gave me a modicum of affection lest it benefit you somehow. Because the sex we used to have was just that and nothing more. You pop in and out of my life like some merciless shadow and expect me to forgive you every time you reappear. But I’m tired of it, Kakashi. I’m tired and there is no reason why I should forgive you this time.”

“I see,” was all Kakashi had to say. With an unreasonably forceful shove, he pushed the chair back and it scrapped loudly against the dusty wooden floors. Then, he got up to leave, wordlessly pulling up the fabric that was hanging loosely around his neck. He was not, Tenzou noted, smiling.

\---

It was nearing midnight and Tenzou was listening to the radio’s wavy, quiet hum crackle in air of an almost empty bar. The lingering remains of a plum wine buzz were all he had left and with the firm knowledge of his companion’s assertive demeanor, he knew that he would have him drinking more.

The warm, slightly astringent alcohol tasted sharp on his tongue, but he reasoned in a careless sort of way that he deserved this slight reprieve. He deserved it, if only to celebrate a hollow, meaningless victory over Kakashi.

In the days following the encounter at his apartment, he had applied for a temporary leave of absence from active duty. This in itself was nothing unique—there had always been waves of shinobi in the aftermath of great conflict that applied for terms of rest. But what had made this request particularly significant was that it had followed an infuriating request that he had received by way of a messenger-nin. He was to be assigned a new post as one the Hokage’s bodyguard. Tenzou, firm in his resolve, had responded by leaving an application for remission with the Hokage’s secretary. The next day it had been returned in the same manner of sterility, a mark of approval scratched messily near the top of the letterhead. A note had accompanied it—the position, as were it, would still be waiting for him once he returned to active duty. 

Tenzou had sighed—while pleased by this small gesture of clemency, he could not, as it appeared, out run his responsibilities forever.

With his familiar group of companions having dwindled considerably in the aftermath of the war, he now turned to Genma for a familiar accompaniment. His impromptu visit with him at the hospital had spurred Tenzou into asking his former teammate for drinks, and now they sat in amicable silence, drinking quietly with their minds eased by the steady flow of alcohol.

At first he wasn’t sure what to expect when it came from Genma—the two had fallen out of familiar circles some time ago, although the cohesive bond they had formed during their tenure in the ANBU together still remained, albeit in tentative shambles. When Tenzou, after a few particularly strong drinks, had told Genma what had occurred following his release from the hospital in regards to his newly appointed position, the other man had simply laughed.

“The Hokage’s bodyguard, eh Tenzou?” the other had said. “Leave it to Hatake to attempt to manipulate you into forcibly being in his presence.” 

“I declined,” Tenzou had told him mutely.

“You can’t turn down a request from the Hokage,” Genma had laughed. “Orders are orders. You out of all people should know this.”

Tenzou had sighed. He knew that Genma was correct in his conjectures and in response to this particularly disheartening fact, he had ordered another round of drinks.

The two of them had now slipped into a state of intoxicated reminiscence, and in between sips of sharp tasting spirits, they recalled their ANBU days from nearly a decade ago. With little inhibition left between them, they talked of former teammates—who was alive these days and who wasn’t—and cognitively, they began to see a pattern of death within the ranks of their former teammates. 

“Looks like the only one who’s really left these days is Hatake,” Genma mused. “I mean there’s Shiro—but he’s retired and spends a lot of time drinking alone. Oh, and there’s Yūgao, but I think she’s up for another psychological evaluation soon. She hasn’t really been right since Hayate passed. But Hatake as the Hokage—,” Genma let out a derisive laugh. “—didn’t see that one coming.”

Genma’s voice had taken on a strangely sarcastic quality that could have passed for genuine surprise. Tenzou however, in remembering the other man’s qualitative nuances blinked and brought a hand to his hair, pushing a few errant strands behind his ear. Genma was not being sincere, and Kakashi as the new Hokage did not surprise him either. The man’s renown as a shinobi was unprecedented, and he supposed if not him as village’s new leader, than who else?

“He tried to apologize actually,” Tenzou offered as a way to fill the silence. “For failing to find me during the war.”

Genma raised a quizzical brow and Tenzou watched as the other’s lips formed into a thinly drawn line.

“Hatake doesn’t apologize for much,” Genma told him after a moments time had passed. Then, astutely: “I’m assuming if you declined the position as his bodyguard that you also rejected his apology.”

Tenzou, with an unsteady hand, brought his half-filled saucer of plum wine to his lips and swallowed. He let out a breathy sigh and set down his saucer on the table. He did so however, a little too strongly and the dark purple liquid sloshed over the rim. Genma let out a quiet laugh and finished off the rest of his sake in one lengthy gulp.

“You know, he’s always favored you,” Genma went on to say, an errant finger playing with rim of his empty saucer. “In the ANBU that was. It probably wasn’t smart of him to do so as our team leader, but we all saw it.”

“We were fucking,” Tenzou deadpanned. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see that too.”

“It did cross our minds at one point, yes—,” Genma poured the remaining amount of sake into both his and Tenzou’s saucers and set the empty bottle down near the edge of the table. “But at the risk of incurring Hatake’s wrath, we said nothing. You remember how ruthless he could be. But still, it’s good to see we can finally put a decade old rumor to rest tonight.”

Tenzou, with little sensibility left, sunk down in his seat and closed his eyes. In response Genma let out another quiet chuckle.

“You still fucking?” the other suddenly asked. Tenzou, who had since opened his eyes and been staring absently at the peeling plaster walls of the old bar, abruptly turned his attention to Genma. The man, although he appeared collectively impartial to the question poised, was steadily awaiting an answer. Tenzou sat up straight up and took another quiet sip of his drink, this time careful not spill any as he set it back down gently on the tabletop.

“No—the last time was probably before we parted ways long before the war happened. Even then it was getting tiresome.”

Genma let out a derisive snort.

“I know at least half a dozen women who would pay to be in your position,” Genma remarked with a hint of lewdness in his voice. “And yet you call sex with Kakashi ‘tiresome’—,”

“—I meant emotionally,” Tenzou corrected him. “Ten years is a long time to be involved in something that is no more than just considered casually hooking up.”

“ _Ah_.”

Genma, in his enlightenment, took another sip of sake. Tenzou too took a sip of his drink, but suddenly and without reservation, decided to finish the saucer in its entirety.

“That’s not good manners,” Genma smirked as Tenzou set his saucer down. “Maybe that’s why Hatake never took you out on a date.”

Tenzou could do nothing but roll his eyes.

In the distance, the clock struck twelve and Genma, despite his teasing, had finished his drink as well.

“C’mon,” he said standing. “Time to go home. I think we’ve both had enough.” Tenzou nodded in agreement, and from his pocket, he pulled out a few errant bills and set them down on the edge of the table near the empty bottles of sake and plum wine.

\---

It was late, and Tenzou was trying to lose himself. No, wait—that was not it exactly—he was trying to find himself—find grounding, that was—in the otherwise mundane task of watering his zinnias. Scarlet and saffron; burgundy and pale lace. They were temporal colours in his otherwise sterile and grey living environment, and an admittedly somber attempt at reintroducing flora to his quiet apartment. He blinked.

_“You learn more about someone at the end of a relationship than you do at the beginning of it, Tenzou.”_

The grounding, as it were, was not overly successful. He set down the watering can near on the floor near the window and found himself returning to the kitchen.

Tenzou would admit that he had frequented Genma’s company intermittently following their initial reunion in the previous weeks. While he had found the other man to be acceptable company, in his drunken state the other had a habit of leaving him with esoteric declarations that in their wholeness, had left Tenzou decidedly undone. His last particular pearl of wisdom had stuck with him unwaveringly, and now, in these quiet moments of solitude, Tenzou could not help but to reflect upon it.

Kakashi, for all that the man had been—his teacher, his captain, and perhaps even his friend—had never been nor tried to be, a proper lover. The relapsing silence that had followed between them since their run in weeks previous had made that particular fact abundantly clear.

Pushing the thoughts away, he scowled and peered into his refrigerator. He wasn’t surprised to find it empty and closed the door slowly before scouring his cupboards instead. It had been little more than a month since his release from the hospital and his kitchen had remained dusty and generally, void of proper supplies. He ruminated that he wasn’t looking after himself all that well, although this knowledge of his general lack of self-care did not bring around any sort of change.

What he found in his cupboards was a half empty bottle of foreign alcohol—one of Genma’s forgotten treasures to be sure—and complacent in where he knew this evening was heading, he took the bottle labelled as ‘whiskey’ and sat it down on the kitchen table. From the cupboard he procured a glass, which he rinsed in the sink under the warm running tap water for a few solitary seconds before returning to the table, seating himself at one of the lone chairs.

He poured himself a half-filled glass, and after the initial sip of golden-brown substance, decided it was cheap and possibly poisonous. Still, he didn’t really care and when he felt his mind beginning to slow like the flat curve of river bend, he set down the glass, empty.

He turned and looked at his zinnias in the warm glow of the kitchen lights and noted that despite his continual attention to them, they appeared to be dying. He wondered why this was happening—he had never had problems growing plants before—but now, even the simplest of flowers withered under his touch. In response, he mechanically uncapped the bottle again and poured himself another half-glass.

He sighed and felt his gaze fall onto the tabletop—the pine wood was knotted and worn smooth by countless meals and touch-and-go medical procedures that he had performed on himself when he had been too damn tired post assignment to visit the hospital. He noted that there was a bloodstain frozen in a permanent two-inch thick drip on the edge of it. With a protracted gaze, he stared at it for a while, bringing his glass to his mouth and only when he set the glass down again did he notice that the door to his apartment had opened.

Kakashi was standing in the entranceway in a tired way, his usual gait somewhat stiff and his standard issue uniform was noticeably ripped around the knee. He was dirty and covered in blood, and Tenzou slowly ascertained that he must have just been getting back from his latest assignment. He would admit that he was mildly curious as to w _hat_ exactly this mission was, for it must have been something especially important if the Hokage out of all people had to see to it. On the other hand, his curiosity was muted by his slight inebriation and so he very pointedly did not look away from the bloodstain on the table’s edge. Instead, all he could think about was how the blood really needed to be cleaned off. That, and how tired he was. He did not have the energy, he calculated quietly, to be dealing with Kakashi right now.

When Tenzou did not move nor speak in the other man’s untimely presence, he heard Kakashi sigh. He let himself in and quietly shut the door. He then moved towards the table slowly, although he did not sit and merely observed Tenzou with a careful eye.

“You have obviously never developed a taste for finer alcohol,” the other man finally remarked, breaking the steadfast silence.

Tenzou looked down into his glass, the lingering remains of the poisonous whiskey clinging to the sides of his cup. Absently, he took another sip of the cheap alcohol and this time, barely noticed the burn. He blinked once, then twice, and then offered the other man a drink.

“Would you like some, senpai?”

Kakashi nodded and opened an arbitrary cupboard door near the sink. From it he pulled another glass, and much as Tenzou had done earlier, bathed the object in warm tap water to clear off the lingering dust that had remained on much of the kitchenware. Tenzou however had remained staid in his actions and absently poured more alcohol into his glass, filling it to the brim. He took a long, unrepentant drink and suddenly the whiskey was gone, nothing left but an empty glass with the residual wash of salvia and sticky alcohol.

Kakashi had seated himself across from him at the table and in response to Tenzou’s abrupt consumption of the whiskey had poured what remained of the substance into his cup. He pulled down his mask and took a muted sip, grimacing slightly at the taste. 

“You’re taking some time off?” the other man mentioned conversationally.

Tenzou nodded and absently traced the rim of his empty glass. He didn’t offer an explanation as to why, or berate Kakashi for asking a question to an already answered query. He had seen and signed his release papers. The man _knew_ Tenzou was on leave. He supposed however, that if he had been sober enough he would have liked to think he would have said something along the lines of: “I’m very tired, senpai—Naruto, Sakura—they think this war meant something and that people change, but they don’t,” or maybe, “This is your fault,” but he wasn’t sober, and the bitter words died unborn, lost to a muddled tongue.

“How long?” Kakashi asked.

Tenzou shrugged and momentarily he lifted his gaze from the tabletop. Kakashi was staring at him in that all too familiar way, although to be precise, he looked sad and maybe even disappointed. Tenzou, inebriated, mind swimming, realized then that there was nothing professional about this conversation at all. How silly of him to think so in the first place—but really, having _the_ Hokage come visit him personally to ask about a leave of absence? Tenzou shook his head. He tried to move to get up, but as he stood his hand hit the empty glass and it fell hitting the hard wood of the tabletop. The sound echoed throughout the dimly lit room and through his blind whiskey haze, Tenzou found his voice.

“I don’t know—today, tomorrow, next week…what does it matter, Kakashi?”

Kakashi shifted in his seat and set down his glass on the table.

“It doesn’t.”

“Then why… _why_ are you asking?” he suddenly snapped.

Then, there was silence. Kakashi took a long, drawn out sip from his drink and set it gracelessly back down on the dirty table, the rounded edges of the glass rocking back and forth in a perpetually swaying motion. The glass however, did not fall and eventually the liquid inside of it settled.

Then:

“Tenzou—I’m sorry.”

Tenzou stared at Kakashi; really _looked_ at him and thought of many things. He thought of impossible possibilities, of drunken confession that had meant nothing throughout the years come morning, and of the first time he had given in, drowning in that wonderful kiss, that clumsy, this feels right and _finally_ kiss.

Then, he thought of all the mornings waking up alone, and Kakashi’s prolonged silences and at times, absences, and the sympathetic smiles his landlord had given him and of missions that never ended the way he wanted too because he was too damn distracted by the gut feeling that maybe there was something more between them, something beyond meaningless sex and of their forced friendship made ceaseless through collective hardship. He thought of the war. Of nearly dying. Of waking up in the hospital and never seeing Kakashi’s face in the many months that he was confined to that one, tiny room, with nothing to do but count ceiling tiles. He thought of these things and shook his head before letting out a hollow, bitter sounding laugh.

“You should be,” he finally told the other man. “You should be more than sorry.”

Kakashi let out a quiet, lengthy sigh.

“I know,” he murmured. “I am.”

Tenzou blinked and forced his gaze in the direction of his zinnias. In the absence of sunlight, the heads had turned slightly downwards and despite their recent watering, he noted browning on the petals’ tips. He then turned back to Kakashi, and in moment of listlessness, pointed to the door.

“You don’t even know what you’re sorry for, senpai. You never do. And I am tired—very tired. I think…”

 _I’m not coming back_ , he wanted to say. _I quitting, like Shiro. I’m quitting before I turn out like Yūgao, who needs psychological evaluations every six months. Before I die like Itachi. Before I turn out like you, heartless and unable to function in a real relationship._

“…I think I’m going to bed,” he finished quietly. He did not walk the other man to the door and simply waited for him to leave. When Kakashi had finally collected himself and departed, the door closed and securely locked, Tenzou walked over to his zinnias and with little thought, threw them into the garbage.

\---

It was hot day in August, and Tenzou felt mildly uncomfortable in the stifling heat of the cramped reception area outside of the Hokage’s office. Kakashi’s secretary had eyed him with little interest when he had announced his presence and had blithely informed him that he was early for his scheduled appointment by ten minutes, and so as it were, he would have to wait. So Tenzou did, seating himself in one of the chairs that lined the wall near the door and tried to ignore the inquiring body language of the two ANBU members that stood on guard duty. He recognized one of them as Yuza—she had just joined the corp shortly before he had taken his leave to act as Team Seven’s interim captain. The other was a mystery, although it took little awareness to see that they too were interested in his visit with the Hokage.

He had no questions in his mind as to what this meeting pertained too. He had been summoned expressly three days following his request for a permanent leave of absence from active duty—in other words retirement. He was, and had been since he had woken up in the hospital, very tired and although Genma assured him that this tiredness would in time pass, Tenzou had his doubts.

Still, Genma had been kind enough to prepare him for this meeting. He had told him that when he had left the ANBU some years ago that they either formally discharged you, or informally sent you a letter declining your request. He had received no letter indicating the latter, and so the motions regarding his retirement were ceremoniously set in place. Tenzou blinked, listless in the warm summer heat. Genma’s final words towards the impending meeting rung heavy in his head:

_“He’ll list your records of accomplishment, throwing you meaningless accolades for your achievements, and ultimately you’ll get honorably discharged with nothing left to your name other than the old tattoo. But hey, it’s Hatake, so you never know—maybe you’ll just throw you the paperwork to sign and tell you to get the hell outta’ his office.”_

“Yamato?”

Tenzou looked up and noted that the secretary was pointing towards the doorway. It was five past three—Kakashi was again late to meet him. Some things, he thought dryly, never changed.

“The Hokage is ready to see you now.”

Tenzou nodded and stood up, the two guards near the door stepping aside and allowing Tenzou entrance to the room. He was greeted by a quietly working Kakashi whose desk was covered in a mess of paperwork, accompanied by a thick file folder that Tenzou immediately recognized as his own. Kakashi, he noted, was adorned in the white ceremonious robe reserved for the town’s leader—this he had never seen the man wear, not even when he had come to visit him—and he appeared to be making notes of some sort. It was only after Tenzou had the sensibility to cough ever so slightly did Kakashi look up.

“Ah, Tenzou—,” His voice appeared sterile and he motioned to the chair sitting near the front of his desk. “—please, sit.”

The two had not talked since their senseless encounter with the whiskey a few weeks ago and Tenzou felt that nothing productive could come of this particular meeting with the man beyond the simple answer of ‘yes’ to his request. The cyclical nature of their relationship was unbounding and Tenzou had been determined to put a stop to it. He felt that as so far he had been successful in this sense, and if Kakashi was as intelligent as he perceived him to be, then he should know that Tenzou was not here to comply in idle, familiar conversation.

Upon seating himself Tenzou mutely observed that Kakashi had momentarily stopped writing. Rather he appeared to be quickly leafing through Tenzou’s personal file—a menagerie of all things intimate that dated back to his childhood. Tenzou watched the process in taciturn disinterest—this certainly wasn’t the first time the village’s Hokage had seen his personal file, although it would probably be the last. Wordlessly, Kakashi closed the file again and turned his attention to his guest.

“Tenzou,” he began. His voice appeared strained, the tone empty albeit somewhat brisk. Kakashi lifted the piece of paper he had been making his messy notes upon and with reserved interest, Tenzou observed that the other man appeared to be reading from it.

“Three days ago my office received your request to be permanently released from your duties as a member of ANBU and summarily as an active member of the shinobi community here within the village of Konohagakure.” He paused, eyes lifting up from the paper momentarily. Then: “Put briefly, it appears as though you wish to retire.”

Tenzou reflexively nodded, a sober sounding, “Yes, Hokage,” escaping his mouth. He was mindful of the other body in the room—in the corner near the window was a third member of the ANBU standing guard, his arms crossed in a conventional display of hypervigilance. Tenzou attempted to pay the other man no mind and instead his focused his attention on Kakashi instead.

“I have carefully reviewed your personal file following your request to be permanently released from duty,” he went on to say, his eyes drawn back to the piece of paper. “Your tenure as a loyal member of the ANBU has not gone unnoticed, and for the most part your record is flawless—,”

Tenzou resisted the urge to sigh. The formality of the situation was draining, although he could in the very least find humour in Kakashi’s attempt at performing the duties of the Hokage with some level of professionality. This— _this_ was how he had imagined meeting Kakashi following his tenuous stay in the hospital. _This_ was what had he had been mentally prepared for all those months ago. _This_ was how it was supposed to have happened.

“—you have the best performance record out of any living ANBU member and under both the Third and Fifth Hokage you were marked as being exceptional—,”

Tenzou zoned out again. He thought to Genma and how he had nothing left of his lost life to the ANBU other than the fading crimson of an old tattoo. How Genma could recite the meaningless distinctions the Third Hokage had offered him for his services to the village, as if that in itself meant something. Kakashi, he noted, was going through these exact same motions with him. Why, Tenzou wondered, he could not understand, although it was perhaps due in part to the motionless ANBU member who remained by his post in the corner of the room. He supposed that Kakashi now had appearances to upkeep—the position of the Hokage was not something the other could take lightly—and Tenzou wondered very briefly how happy he was, if at all. 

“—which is why as the Hokage I cannot justifiably recommend your release from service, however as—,”

Wait— _what?_

Abruptly, Tenzou shoved his chair back from the desk and leapt up from his seat.

“— _repeat that_!”

The words had slipped from his mouth before he had the chance to properly compose himself and the proximity that now separated him and Kakashi was non-existent. He leaned heavily on the desk, causing the masked ANBU member in the back corner to jostle with readied alertness.

“ _Huh_?” Kakashi looked up from the paper he had been dutifully reading off of. He appeared slightly confused albeit his blasé attitude remained. “Uh, alright—where was I? _However as_ —,” he began again.

“—No!” Tenzou vehemently cut him off. “The part before that, about you being unable to recommend my release.”

“ _Tenzou_ ,” Kakashi tried again. He could hear temperance and tones of impatience lingering in the other man’s voice, but Tenzou did not care. He was tired, but in his exhaustion there was a smouldering resentment that through the course of many months had turned into ashes of outright anger. Didn’t Kakashi _get it?_ People did not change; the war— _him_ —they were all patterned motions in an endless, undulating wheel that went round and round and round. There was no stopping it and he wanted _out._

There was a clatter, an almost soundless _oomph_ as Tenzou swept across the desk and grabbed onto the pristine, white collar of Kakashi’s robe, dragging him forward. The other man did not resist and the paperwork went flying. Tenzou’s file in its enormity splayed its guts across expanse of the floor and then the guarding member of the ANBU was moving, very quickly—

Tenzou, with stiffness and unmitigated fury enmeshed in every line of his form, snarled.

“ _You_ —,” The word ‘bastard’ sat dead on his tongue, the inaudible _crack_ of the ANBU member appearing behind him. With one quick movement, the sharp blade of a katana was at the curve of this throat. He swallowed thickly, acutely aware of the cool metal edge of the blade pressed firmly enough into the ply of his skin to warrant his assured calm. Kakashi, who had fallen back into his seat gently adjusted the collar of his robe before snapping his fingers briskly.

“But Hokage—,”

“Leave,” Kakashi instructed the masked man. Wordlessly the member of the ANBU nodded and the blade dropped by his side. There was another _crack_ and suddenly the two of them were alone.

Tenzou breathed in deeply, his fingers gingerly touching the curve of his neck where the line of the blade had skirted around his arteries.

“I’m sorry for that,” Kakashi went on to say. He had removed the fabric of the mask covering the lower portion of his face and Tenzou could freely observe the man’s stolid expression. He looked in part apologetic, however his eyes were moored by irritation, cast downwards towards the surface of the desk.

“I’m tired of apologies,” Tenzou ground out evenly.

“So you have been telling me these past few months,” Kakashi quietly replied. “I have tried to be respectful of you, Tenzou—I was doing it this way for your sake because you have made it abundantly clear that my words are now meaningless to you—,”

 “—I asked to retire and like always, you attempted to— _to_ manipulate me. This time into _staying_! Can’t you realize that maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life doing this?!”

It was a quiet explosion, his words fierce and enlarged by the ashes in his veins that felt hot and unbearable and had been, for the most part, suffocating him since he woke up in the hospital. He didn’t want the incalculable uncertainty _of_ —of _them_ ; of death, of gray shinobi ethics, of meaningless relationships and yes, that meant Kakashi too—he didn’t want it, and he didn’t want it so fervently that he felt like he had been drowning for some time now. He blinked and looked to Kakashi’s face—for that smile he used to love so much—but there wasn’t one—just a disassociated stare that Tenzou found to be unreadable. In defeat, he found himself closing his eyes.

“If you would have let me finished,” the other man quietly interjected. “You would have discovered that I am not making you stay.”

The rapid beating of Tenzou’s heart hitched. He opened his eyes and focused his gaze on Kakashi again.

“You’re…not?”

“No,” Kakashi told him firmly. “I had a speech written down to recite to you on one of these paper’s here along with your discharge forms,” he said motioning to mess that was his desk and floor. Then, self-deprecatingly he added: “As if you haven’t already figured this out, but I’m not very good at the professional acumen that is required of being the Hokage.”

Tenzou nodded, although remained acutely silent. Kakashi…he was…letting him go? Instantaneous relief flooded through every aspect of his being, however it was quickly hampered by a gnawing and indecipherable feeling of suspicion.

“ _Why_?” he was quick to question. “Two months ago you had requested that I take a post as your personal bodyguard and now you’re simply releasing me—it doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to.” Kakashi sighed and Tenzou noted that the other man’s gaze had been drawn to the expanse of blue permeating from the large window to his right.

“As I was trying to say,” Kakashi continued on. “As the Hokage I can’t justifiably recommend your release. On paper, you’re perfect. Yes, you have your flaws—I read the entirety of your file last night—but it goes without saying that you’re an undeniable asset to the village.”

Tenzou nodded quietly, but this time did not interrupt.

“But as my friend…” Kakashi went on to say. His voice was deliberately contemplative, as though the man was caught by the call of distant memories. For a moment, there was silence. Then: “Well, I won’t stop you. In fact, it would probably do me some good knowing that you won’t be putting yourself into danger anymore.” He finished with a small smile, his eyes crinkling into those familiar half-lidded moons that Tenzou had grown to know intimately throughout the passing of the years.

By this point, his anger had all but subsided and Tenzou blinked, the yawning chasm of a slow cognitive understanding of what Kakashi had been trying to do hitting him in slow, undulating waves.

“You—,” He started slowly. “—you tried to request me as your bodyguard because you didn’t want me out in the field anymore,” Tenzou stated softly.

Kakashi nodded, opening a drawer on his desk and pulled out another sheaf of paper.

“Summarily, yes,” he went on to say, searching for a pen. “It was ideal because I rarely leave this office these days. However your tactful response,”—the word ‘tactful’ was enunciated by hints of sarcasm—“suited me just fine, I suppose. It was better to know that you were somewhere within the vicinity of village rather than actively performing your duties in the field.”

Tenzou searched his brain for a modicum of intelligence that could somehow rationalize what it was that he was hearing. He thought back to the many months ago when he had first been released from the hospital and that night when Kakashi had shown up at his apartment with the brown paper bag of soggy ramen noodles. What was it that he had said? His mind felt dull and hazy following his months of rest which in course had been accompanied by too many trips to the bar with Genma. He frowned and tried to recall the incident with more clarity—he remembered Kakashi telling him that he had sent Pakkun to look for him, and there was his quiet apology and—

_Tenzou, you don’t understand how worried I was._

Ah, there it was—Kakashi, as it seemed, had been telling the truth. In discomfort, Tenzou felt himself bristle slightly at the difficult memory before he turned to look at him—the man was scribbling something down on what appeared to be a blank form of sorts.

“Here,” Kakashi said, extending the piece of paper towards Tenzou. “These are your discharge forms. I had a copy filled out earlier before you made a mess of my desk, but there’s no use looking for them now,” he said with a slight chuckle. “I’ve signed it, but this one is blank—just put whatever you want in those spaces asking the reasons for discharge; psychological instability, physical deterioration—you know, the standard stuff. Return it to my secretary when you’re done and that’s it: you’ll be free.”

“Senpai—that _isn’t_ how it’s supposed to be done—,” The apprehension in his voice was palpable, but regardless he took the papers from the other man’s hands, carefully folding them over before tucking them away under his arm.

Kakashi, undeterred, flippantly waved him off.

“Mah, Tenzou—you know I’m not good with paperwork. That’s why I always had you do it when we were younger.”

Tenzou nodded in response and took this as his cue to leave. Wordlessly, he turned and followed his steps back towards the door leading to the reception area, the discharge forms in hand.

“Remember—,” Kakashi called after him. Despite their initial altercation, the man seemed to be cheerful.  “—Return them to the secretary.”

Again, Tenzou nodded and without further conversation, saw himself out of the office.

\---

With his free hand, Genma was idly flipping through the blank pages of Tenzou’s discharge papers, his other preoccupied with a saucer of sake. He murmured to himself as he did so, the saucer poised at his lips, but at no point did he take a sip.

Tenzou waited patiently for the man to finish his rudimentary reading of the paperwork—Genma had been keen to see a physical copy up close and personal after all these years and was making arbitrary comments on how little the bureaucratic process had changed. Even so, he had been fairly amused by the whole situation and thought it would be an ideal time to meet again for idle conversation over drinks.

“Here’s a good one,” Genma said slyly with a slight chuckle. “’ _Has the operative candidate in question ever engaged in inappropriate relationships and/or behavior with conduct unbefitting to his or her professional stature within the confines of their oath to Hokage?’_ You can check that one off as a definite ‘yes’.”

“You must have slept through your orientation all those years ago,” Tenzou smiled. “Sleeping with your squad captain falls into an unidentified grey area.”

Genma laughed and Tenzou took small sip of his drink. It was a quiet evening, late into the summer—the rainy season was right around the corner—and Tenzou had yet to hand in his paperwork regarding his retirement. Even now, he wasn’t sure what to make of his own apparent inaction. He hadn’t really thought of it much—no, wait, that was a lie—he had thought of it almost every day, and every day he told himself he would fill it out the next day. The cycle as were, had repeated ad nauseam for quite some time. He would admit that he had over the course of this period examined the document thoroughly. He had made mental notes as to its specificities and had formed a generalized idea of what exactly it was he had to denote when the time came, however when it came to actually sitting down and writing it down he had found himself at a mental standstill.

“Leave it to Hatake to make you fill out your own retirement slip,” Genma mused. The man had finally taken a quiet sip of his drink and Tenzou noted that the other had finished perusing the paperwork. In response to this Tenzou let out a small chuckle and plucked the paperwork from his companion’s hands. He got up and set it gingerly over on the countertop near the sink, mindful that when he did return the paperwork it shouldn’t be stained and smelling of alcohol.

“He had a formed filled out already actually,” Tenzou idly remarked. He sat himself back down at the table and picked up his saucer. “However I may have lost it in a landslide of paperwork when I attacked him.”

Genma, who had been in the least mildly interested by Tenzou’s discharge papers, now appeared to be fully enthralled by his latest recount of his meeting with the Hokage. In fact, the other man could barely contain his glee.

“You _attacked_ Hatake?” he laughed. “You realize you could have been killed right? The ANBU operatives who guard him aren’t just there for looks you know… _wait—,”_ Genma’s voice had taken on a speculative sort of quality and he leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across the length of his chest.

“Hatake already had all your paperwork _all_ filled out for you?” he asked. There were tones of skepticism in his voice underscored by a delayed understanding of the whole situation.

Tenzou could only nod.

“From what I could tell, yes.”

The other man began to shake his head before he sat back up and let out a derisive snort. Then, out of nowhere came: “You’re still fucking him, aren’t you?”

Tenzou blinked, once, twice, then he finished the drink his hand, setting the saucer down slowly on the surface of the tabletop.

“Like I told you before, Genma,” Tenzou said dryly. “It’s been a while since we did anything of the sorts.”  

“Then the war God’s in all their divinity must be dead because Kakashi Hatake _never_ does paperwork.”

Tenzou paused to think about this statement—it was another of Genma’s inebriated admonitions. Tenzou was, for the most part, getting better at understanding them and they were usually professed in moments of maudlin after the pair had had too much to drink. This one however was spoken in a state of near sobriety and had created an unexpected silence between the pair of friends. Tenzou had blinked briefly, staring tentatively down into the remains of his saucer, and ruminated on what exactly it meant for Kakashi to have pre-emptively drawn up his discharge papers. He could think of nothing sensible. Genma was once again, spouting off nonsense.

When Tenzou did not respond, Genma broke the idle silence by filling Tenzou’s saucer with the remainder of the sake.

“I wasn’t joking you know,” he told Tenzou casually, carefully pouring the liquid into the shallow cup. “What I said all those weeks ago, I mean about Hatake favoring you.”

Tenzou again did not respond, merely signalled for Genma to stop pouring and with greedy fingers brought the saucer to his parched lips.

“You might think I’m crazy,” Genma went on to say, pouring the rest of the liquid into the confines of his own cup. “But there’s a chance that Hatake, in all his fucked up self—and I’m not saying this is a good thing, mind you—might actually _like_ you.”

Tenzou let out a small laugh.

 “That isn’t surprising,” he responded unassumingly at long last. “He has already told me on multiple occasions that I’ve earned his respect as his former teammate. He says we’re ‘equals’.”

Genma sighed deeply and rolled his eyes, setting down the empty bottle.

“Tenzou—,” He paused for a moment, fiddling with the senbon needle that was perpetually hanging from curve of his lip. “I don’t mean as a teammate or fellow shinobi, or even as a subordinate. I mean as a person.” Then, after a muted sip of his drink he added: “Have you ever considered how many other people have seen Hatake’s face?”

Tenzou blinked dully—admittedly, he had not thought of that question before; it had never been his primary concern—but before he could respond, Genma had started talking again.

“From what I hear, not many. You’re probably one of the few who’s actually seen it. Look, I’m not saying the man’s in love with you or anything but—,”

Tenzou had heard enough.

“—you’re telling me, that based off a piece of paperwork, Kakashi— _the_ Kakashi—likes me,” Tenzou cut the other off dryly.

“ _No_ ,” Genma laughed. “I mean, _yes_ , but there’s other things too, Tenzou. It’s just that for a shinobi, you’re not exactly the most observant person in the world,” Genma finished with a sly smile.

Tenzou frowned, deep lines etching into the contours of his face. He picked up his drink for a fourth time, and wordlessly brought the sharp liquid to his mouth. Genma could only laugh and it wasn’t long before the other had convinced him that they needed to go to a bar.

\---

The walk home that evening was a sloppy mess of misplaced footsteps coupled with a drunken balancing act that reflected poorly on both of them. Genma, for all his proclivity as an esteemed jounin had nearly fallen twice and Tenzou, three sheets to the wind, had been laughing too hard to help him.

After much drunken conjecture, the pair parted ways near the market district and this had left Tenzou free to slowly make his way back to his apartment complex at a leisurely pace. This he supposed, was for the best, as despite being amused by Genma’s sloppy footwork, he too was having trouble keeping his balance.

As he walked, the warm summer’s night air smelled of dry grass when he breathed in deep, but it was his own sharp awareness of his overwhelming inebriation that had allowed him to focus on taking steady, even steps. It was for the most part quite taxing and after a while he stopped trying to balance his gait.

He was still smiling by the time he reached his apartment complex. While there had been nothing unusual about the evening out—the two had drank in same bar at the same booth as they always did—he found that for the first time in a long time, he had felt…something. Not tired, not anxious, but _something._ He settled on the fact that what he was feeling as a whole was entirely indescribable. Whatever it was however, it was a state of being that he hadn’t felt within himself for quite some time. Or maybe, he ruminated in amusement, he was simply stupidly drunk.

Given the late hour, the building he lived in was silent and dark. He let himself in in silence and when he reached his apartment unit on the third floor, he fumbled with the keys. It took him more than a few seconds for him to unlock the door and then quietly, he let himself inside.

Like the rest of housing complex, his apartment was bathed in quiet. He was thirsty, he thought. Automatically, he stumbled through the darkness and found himself in the kitchen. From the cupboard he grabbed a glass and from in front of him, he turned on the tap. He let the water run steadily until it was cold before filling his cup. Then, unhinged by his sudden and inexplicable thirst, he brought the water to his lips and drank greedily.

Still thirsty, he was careful to refill his glass for a second time and then turned around, leaning back leisurely on the counter’s edge. His eyes scanned the room through the relative darkness…the only source of light was the moon which shone through the sitting room window and cast shadows on his sparse array of furniture. In turn he found himself chuckling again because his vision appeared to be slightly blurry, and he silently criticized himself for allowing Genma to convince him to drink so much. He would have to pay the other back in kind next time.

Wordlessly, he turned back to the sink and set the cup into the steel basin and it was only then that he noticed the sheaf of paperwork sitting next to it on the counter, deliberately unfinished. _Ah_ —he knew he had been forgetting something. He reflected that perhaps that’s why he had been in such a good spirits…

The initial levity he had been feeling since the walk home from the bar temporarily receded as he picked up the discharge forms and he quickly flipped through it for what must have been the hundredth time. He had dragged Kakashi over the length of his desk for this form and yet here it was some weeks later, untouched.

“I really am an idiot.” He managed to chuckle softly, thinking back to Genma’s remarks when he had told the other man that he had attacked the Hokage. He set the paperwork down near the sink and stared out into the darkness of his apartment again. “Kakashi must think I’m an idiot too.”

“Mah Tenzou, I wouldn’t say that—,”

Momentarily, Tenzou stilled, frozen in place by the quiet words that had sprung forth from the emptiness of his apartment. Then, carefully, he searched for the source of the voice and after a moment’s time, he realized someone was standing motionlessly in entrance near the doorway. In the darkness, he could barely make out the persons shape, but the voice that had spoken to him was entirety recognizable. He blinked once, then twice before the shadow stepped out of the darkness and into moon-bathed sitting room.

_Kakashi._

Wordlessly, the man casually crossed the length of the room and entered the kitchen area, positioning himself at a distance in front of him. Tenzou balked.

“How long have you been _there_?” Tenzou’s words were spoken in a loud albeit strained whisper and then, when the other man didn’t answer him immediately, he found himself shaking his head.

“You can’t just let yourself into other people’s apartments like that, senpai! You’re supposed to knock for a reason and—,”

“—Tenzou,” the other man remarked casually in quiet tones. “Your neighbours are sleeping.”

Tenzou felt himself flush, but Kakashi’s reticent remark did not quell his curiosity. The cogs in his brain were turning slowly, muddled by an alcoholic embrace and his presence made little sense to him. Unwittingly, he turned to the clock that ticked monotonously on the wall near the table and blinked—it was 2:37 am. Again, for the second time that evening he could think of no sensible reason for Kakashi’s spurious actions, especially at such a remissive hour.

“It’s late,” Tenzou told the other man unintelligently.  

“It is,” Kakashi responded in kind, but offered Tenzou nothing more.

He felt himself grow agitated—in part due to the man’s aloofness and considerably more in part due to Genma’s latent words of wisdom from the hours previous. For the most part he had been content to ignore the idea of Kakashi liking him as Genma was always spouting off nonsense that for the most part, did Tenzou little good. Still he remembered that he had later drunkenly professed to the other man that he didn’t want that glimmer of hope to be reignited within him again, forever cached in the back of his mind. It had done him no good for the better part of a decade and he was decidedly done with waiting. Genma, in response to this, had simply laughed and told Tenzou that he was thicker than a tree stump.  

With all that said he now realized that his willingness to consume so much alcohol this evening had partially been due to a desire to liquefy any silly notions that had be replanted in his mind by the likes of his drinking partner. The more Genma had talked about Kakashi, the more Tenzou had drank.

Suddenly, he frowned. Was it by some divine notion that Genma has ascertained this particular fact? Undeterred by his drunkenness, he tried to think back—what _was_ it exactly that the other man had said to him? Something about how he wasn’t all that observant, if he recalled correctly. Perhaps Genma, by some small miracle, was right.

He could not however ruminate on the subject matter for long, because as it were Kakashi remained silently standing in front of him. Tenzou let out a lengthy side and pinched two fingers to his brow. The man was as confusing as ever and Tenzou was far too inebriated to even fathom what he could possibly want. 

“And you’re here _because_?” The words slipped off his tongue fluidly and he realized that he might have been slurring.

The other man closed the distance between them, but he brushed past Tenzou in his entirety. Instead, he reached for the paperwork that was sitting on the counter between them, next to the sink. He picked it up and casually flipped through it, a raised brow the only indication of what he could possibly be thinking. Nothing good, Tenzou thought. Then, Kakashi took a step back, the paperwork still in hand and pulled down his mask.

“You were supposed to return this in to my secretary,” he informed Tenzou, holding up the discharge forms. His tone was impassive but revealed little else.

Tenzou crossed his arms and leaned back into the counter’s edge once more. Kakashi had come all this way to his apartment at two in the morning for…paperwork. He blinked. It was not by any means the answer he had been expecting.

“I’ve been…busy,” Tenzou finally replied albeit uncomfortably. Yes, he thought dourly, he was definitely slurring now.

Kakashi arched his brow again, eyes glancing towards the tabletop where the empty bottle of sake and two saucers sat alongside a forgotten senbon needle that was abandoned by the wayside. Then, with little expression, Kakashi said: “With Genma.”  It was not a question and Tenzou, in his current state, felt a twinge of guilt. He nodded once before taking an unsteady step forward.

“Senpai, _look_ —,” he started.       

“—You can call me Kakashi now, Tenzou. I’ve told you this before,” the other man corrected him gently.

“Kakashi—,” Tenzou tried again, but faltered. He didn’t even know what exactly it was he was trying to say to the man. Was is that he was sorry? That for the most part, had for no sensible reason other than an unexplained mental complacency for delaying the process of filling out the discharge papers? How could he even attempt to offer Kakashi an excuse when he didn’t even properly know the reason himself?

“Your standard issue three month leave of absence from active duty is up for review tomorrow,” Kakashi went on to say when Tenzou did not continue. Momentarily, he looked at the papers again, eyes quietly scanning the empty document. The paperwork dropped to his side by ways of his listless hand. “I need your answer, Tenzou, _by tomorrow_. Do you understand?”

There were implicit undertones in the statement that even Tenzou in his inebriation could understand. He would be returned to active duty within his waking hours, as very rarely were considerations made to extend the standard issue reprieve period. His breath hitched— _had three months really gone by already?—_ but wordlessly Tenzou nodded and Kakashi extended the blank sheaves of paper into his waiting hands.

Then, the other man turned to go, making his way in silence towards the door.

Tenzou in turned stared down at the paperwork in his hands, at the blank spaces and at the rudimentary questions meant to solidify his future as a civilian. Dully, he blinked.

He noted that his chest had begun to hurt with each unceasingly persistent thud of his heartbeat and that there was in sorts an unpleasant sort of ringing in his ears. Suddenly, unexpectedly and very quickly, he felt tired again. It was the same undue tiredness he had been experiencing in unrelenting waves since he had woken up in the hospital and it was back just as quickly as it had disappeared. How silly it was of him to think he could escape it, he thought quietly.

Unwillingly, his thoughts began to slip. They sloshed from one end of the spectrum to the other and he found himself once again loosely ruminating on how the war had changed nothing. How even now they all still followed the hollow ethics of shinobi conventionality. How even if he were to be released from duty, war and conflict would continue regardless.  

The balance in his mind shifted; he thought of Kakashi, and of what the man had said to him in his office little less than a month ago— _you’ll be free_. He thought of birthed smiles and of Genma’s drunken declarations of wisdom and the complacency of his inability to accept his responsibilities. He shook his head and without reservation he felt the alcoholic embrace that had filled the compartments of his brain swell with unspoken words that sat unhinged on the tip his tongue.

“ _Kakashi_ —,”

His voice, although muddled, was strained by hints of quiet desperation. The other man stopped, and slowly he turned to look at him. He appeared distracted albeit his eyes were soft and Tenzou swallowed thickly. He wanted…he needed…

Without warning, the words burst forward from his mouth like the breaking of a bloated damn.

“Kakashi, I need to tell you something—I’m... _I_ …”

His chest was aching, the ringing in his ears now nigh incessant.

“Tenzou?” the other man probed. Kakashi had taken a quiet step towards him and Tenzou in part had fallen back, his backside digging sharply into the countertop’s edge.  His momentum had faded, and while his thoughts were loosened by the warm embrace of alcohol that he had grown accustomed to relying on over the past few months, he felt as though he were choking on ash.

“I’m…” he tried once more, searching carelessly for his own personal brand of normalcy—of something— _anything_ —that was left of him before he had nearly died within Zetsu’s wall. Nothing remained he decided and distantly he felt the papers that he held within his fingers crumple.

“Tenzou, I know…”

Tenzou blinked and looked up.

“I know you’re tired—,” Kakashi was in front of him now, careful and quiet in his deliberate movements, approaching Tenzou with staid grace. Gently, he pulled the creased papers free from Tenzou’s balled hand. “ _Yes_ ,” he said quietly this time.  “I know.”

Tenzou stared at the other man, his vison swaying as he blinked—there was a small smile on Kakashi’s face but it was betrayed by the sadness he held in his eyes.

Tenzou shook his head, and with his mind swimming in forgotten acts of kindness that he had chosen so purposefully to ignore, he inaudibly announced he would like to go to bed.

Kakashi nodded.

 “You really are something,” the other man had murmured in quiet contemplation. He was still smiling Tenzou noted, but the sadness in his eyes was gone and replaced in part by something indistinguishable. Guilt, perhaps, or moreover, regret. Then, wordlessly, Kakashi wrapped an arm around him and helped him in parts to find a steady path towards his room.

\---

Tenzou woke up in a heavily sedated state. His head, he noted, was throbbing dully and his mouth was dry and tasted akin to cotton. Moaning, he shifted ever so slightly—he felt stiff and unnaturally poised—but this small amount of movement appeared to rouse his body’s delayed reaction to his hangover. In full force, he suddenly felt his stomach ache with a dull, familiar pain as the undulating waves of nausea washed over him. His tongue too was swollen and as he ran it alongside the inside of his mouth, he could taste the dull remains of the dried plum wine and sake coating his teeth.

He groaned.

Momentarily, he remained motionless in his pathetic state, as if by this action alone would surreptitiously cure him of his hangover. It didn’t. Then, albeit slowly, he forced himself to open his eyes.

The room, he noted, was bathed in a warm grays, the blinds drawn tightly shut. He blinked slowly as he attempted to adjust to the overwhelming feeling that his body was by means of a slow poisoning attempting to betray him. He reasoned, quite sensibly, that he may still be drunk.

Then finally, he sat up, the sheets pooling around his waist. There was an instantaneous rush of blood pounding in his forehead and in turn, he nearly vomited. He brought his hands to his head, cradling it gently, only to hear a quiet noise. It was a small crinkling that was akin to the sound of soft paper being gently flipped.

Through bleary eyes he focused his attention to the far right corner of his room where the sound had originated from. Kakashi was comfortably seated near the door, quietly reading what Tenzou noted to be one of his lewd romance novels.

Tenzou blinked again in sluggish bewilderment and he swallowed thickly. The other man momentarily looked up before he gently closed the book and set it carefully down on the closest flat surface. Then, he stood and wordlessly exited the room. Tenzou momentarily shook his head before allowing his eyes to freely follow the other man with latent interested. In the recesses of his apartment, he could then hear the gurgle of water flowing into the basin of the metallic kitchen sink.

Kakashi returned to the room a few minutes later carrying with him a glass of water. The other man handed it to him and watched in muted interested as Tenzou brought the cup to his parched lips. He took a careful sip, however he felt his stomach instantaneously lurch. Mutely, he frowned and set the glass down on the table next to the bed. Then, in discomfort, he tentatively searched for his voice.

“Senpai…I…” he started.

He could not for the most part remember much the previous evening—minute pieces of it flooded his brain in fuzzy intervals, but there was nothing cohesive that could in its entirety explain why Kakashi was here at this very early hour. He was missing something, he thought dourly. Quietly, he searched in earnest for a coherent explanation and very gradually he remembered the paperwork.

_“I need your answer, Tenzou—,”_

The sharpness of the sudden memory was swathed by the lingering awareness that he was in fact out of time. No amount of purposeful idleness nor casual drinking could belay the fact he was going to have to make a decision. He swallowed thickly, attempting in part to ignore the sudden unyielding heaviness that had settled in his chest.

“I think we need to have a talk, Tenzou.”

Kakashi’s voice pulled Tenzou out of his reverie and in response, he slowly nodded. He was admittedly too ill feeling to object to a conversation with Kakashi that he otherwise would not have voluntarily partaken in. Kakashi in response had eased himself down next to him on the edge of the bed and Tenzou, disquieted, shifted slightly to the right.

“How are you feeling?” Kakashi casually asked.

Tenzou repressed a sigh and ran an unsteady hand through his messy hair.

“Honestly, senpai?” he tried weakly. “ _Horrible_.”

Kakashi nodded, the creased corner of his eyes indicative of a small smile held gingerly beneath the fabric of his mask. Then:

“Do you remember anything of last night?”

To this, Tenzou murmured a quiet “yes,” before his eyes fell to the mess of sheets that were curled around his clothed abdomen.

He did remember, albeit muddled as it was, and slowly in his embarrassment he found himself contemplating in a very quiet and deliberate way that he in part was unable to run any longer.

He sighed.

There was a creeping realization in the pit of his gut that despite his attempts, there was no picking and choosing which actions and happenings were integrated into his environment. He could not stop Kakashi from doggedly pursuing him as he had all these months in the same way that Naruto could not stop another war from occurring. Change, as it were, could not be politely refused and there was no logical progression in the way the world worked. Rather, it cycled endlessly, new conflicts arising with every turn of the wheel, and there was very little Tenzou could do to resist it. He had for the better part of three months attempted to outrun the reality of this situation, but beyond falling into his own listless cycle of destructive behaviors, he realized now that he had not truly escaped it. 

“I filled out the paperwork for you,” Kakashi went on to say. “It’s in the kitchen on the table—all you have to do is sign it and I’ll file it when I return to my office.”

Tenzou nodded but did not trust himself to speak. Instead he found himself staring quietly down into lap, his chest thrumming with discomforting sort of tension—he was simultaneously filled with quiet relief and yet at the same time, heavy disappointment. He would be free of his responsibilities towards the village, he thought softly, although to what degree of peace that would bring him he certainly could not know.

“However,” Kakashi continued on.  “After it’s been filed, I would like you to visit the hospital.”

Tenzou’s gaze quickly shifted upwards and he found himself searching Kakashi’s covered face. It revealed little, and Tenzou felt himself growing confused. Unwittingly, he found himself frowning.

“I’m perfectly fine, senpai,” Tenzou told the other man uneasily. “I’m hungover—not dying.”

Kakashi nodded, but did not relent.

“For a psychological evaluation, Tenzou,” he told him in temperance.

Tenzou in his bewilderment, dully blinked.

“You think there’s something wrong me,” he deadpanned. Even so, he felt an uncommon rush of anger instantly fill his veins.

“I think,” the other man said carefully. “That the personnel who oversaw your recovery following your retrieval may have overlooked certain aspects of your situation.”

Tenzou blindly shook his head, vaguely aware of the surging emotional indignation that was swelling forth in his chest. It felt tight, he thought, and in his distemper, he felt himself grip at the sheets that were pooled around his waist.

“There’s nothing _wrong_ me with, Kakashi,” he suddenly spat out. “What’s wrong is, _is_ —,” He was choking on words, unable to properly convey how the war had never really been resolved for him and peace was not a finite concept that Naruto, in his silliness, believed would last. The paperwork on the table couldn’t fix that, and neither could Kakashi. For underneath all the bitterness and habitual drinking he had partaken in, he was just so tired of it all. He was tired of things that did not change, like the staircase of dead bodies that every generation climbed over to reach the top step, only to tumble and fall into the ceaseless pit of violence below that was their livelihood as a village. He was tired of Kakashi, forever slipping in and out of his life, and never really staying, static in his emotional unavailability and yet ceaselessly pulling him towards a plying uncertainty that left him wholly numb.

“—Is what?” the other man questioned him gently.

Tenzou felt himself sink back against the pillow behind him and with undue weariness, he closed his eyes.

“ _Everything_ ,” he felt himself murmur. “Everything is wrong. You, me, this village…”

Kakashi remained silent; Tenzou, curious as to what the other man was thinking, listlessly opened his eyes and found the other man staring steadily at him as if he was patiently waiting for something more. Tenzou merely frowned, and cast his gaze towards the drawn blinds of the window, eyes tracing the shallow light that cast small shadows throughout the room. When the silence endured, Kakashi sighed and Tenzou felt the other man shift in discomfort at the edge of his bed

“It’s okay to need help, Tenzou,” Kakashi finally said when it became apparent that Tenzou would say no more.

Kakashi’s voice was quiet and Tenzou felt his breath hitch. 

“It’s just that I…” The other man paused, and Tenzou’s gaze slipped fluidly back towards Kakashi, carefully tracing the hard lines that etched worry into the other man’s face. “I don’t think you’re okay,” he finished with some degree of apprehension. “I don’t see any blood _but_ —but I can feel you bleeding out, Tenzou, and I think you have been for quite some time...”

Tenzou blinked, and slowly, he let out his repressed breath.

“ _Kakashi_ ,” Tenzou said irately. “That’s not it—,”

“—the worst part is that you can’t see it,” Kakashi cut him off. “I know I haven’t been fair to you in the past, Tenzou, but please believe me when I say that I am worried for you.”

For the second time that morning, Tenzou found himself blindly shaking his head. This conversation wasn’t happening _,_ he thought desperately. This emotional conflagration in his chest wasn’t happening. Kakashi, being here, right now—it wasn’t happening.

Only it was and Tenzou found himself growing ever angrier.  

“Don’t do this to me,” Tenzou snapped weakly. He sat up straight and dared to look Kakashi straight in the eye. “Don’t pretend like you care when for all these years you’ve shown me nothing but coldness and disregard!”

Somehow, the conversation had been turned on its head—it wasn’t just about Tenzou or a psychological evaluation, or how he needed help (he didn’t—he didn’t _need_ anything)—it was about _them_ and Kakashi and their relationship and Tenzou—well, Tenzou wasn’t ready to listen to another pitiful excuse and the begging of forgiveness.

Kakashi however did not seem to mind this unnerving turn of events, and instead Tenzou found the other shaking his head slowly before carefully pulling down his mask, the wrinkly blue fabric hanging loose around the pitted collarbones of his neck.

“I thought you were dead.” Kakashi’s words were sharp and his voice was quiet, eyes drawn purposefully to the empty space on the bed between them. “When Pakkun couldn’t find you, I was certain you were gone. It was a strange feeling and I remember thinking to myself how pathetic it wasn’t that I couldn’t see myself living without something that I could never fully understand.”

Kakashi was quiet for a moment, and Tenzou bit his tongue. Instead, he found himself observing the other in a reflective manner, eyes distantly tracing the etched lines of Kakashi’s sobering expression. Then, with deliberate staidness, the other quietly inched towards him.  Tenzou in turn flinched and found that his own breathing had suddenly become tight and shallow. He pulled back, but found there was nowhere to go, his body trapped by Kakashi’s unwelcomed closeness and the wall behind his bed.

 “I didn’t know what to do,” Kakashi murmured quietly, finally meeting Tenzou’s gaze. “And then I found out you were alive,”—there was a small smile tracing the thin lips of Kakashi’s face—“it was suddenly like I could breathe again.”

Tenzou did not respond, instead fixedly focused his attention on the gentle and steady beating of his own heart. He felt anxious and unwittingly breathless and without understanding where it had come from, he was also unimaginably overwhelmed. His hands curled unnervingly around the soft fabric of his sheets and he felt the anger quietly recede. Instead, he found himself suddenly hoping— _wishing_ —

Softly and hesitantly, Kakashi fingers grazed his curled fingers, unravelling them slowly from the mess of the sheets. The contact alone forced Tenzou to look up—Kakashi was mere inches from him now—and then, with little apprehension, the other man smiled.

“You _are_ sorry,” Tenzou said slowly. It wasn’t a question, but rather an affirmation of facts, and to this, Kakashi nodded.

“My mistrust of the future makes it hard for me to give up the past,” Kakashi told him softly. “But yes, I am sorry, Tenzou. More than you know.”

Tenzou balked and quirked an inquisitive brow towards the other man. What did he mean? Begrudgingly, Kakashi let out a quiet self-deprecating laugh. He gently squeezed Tenzou’s hand before continuing on.

“When I was younger, after watching so many people I cared about fall victim to the nature of our profession, I promised myself I would never love like that again. I would avoid potential hurt and sadness by detaching myself from emotional complications…” Kakashi blinked and Tenzou watched as the other shoulders fell, a heaving sadness marring his quiet, solemn face.

“Only in doing so,” he went on say. “I destroyed potential happiness as well, and by ways of my own inability to follow my own promises, I hurt others—I hurt you.”

Tenzou felt as though he had given a sharp blow to his own sensibilities. The things Kakashi were saying—well, they didn’t—they _couldn’t_ —be true. Numbly, he blinked and shook his head slowly.

“You’re saying that I…that _you_ …”

A silence consumed the space between them and Tenzou distantly felt himself disentangle his hand from Kakashi’s reassuring grip—the other man released him without struggle—and in frustration, he ran a shaky hand through his head of messy hair.

“You weren’t wrong to be angry with me,” Kakashi continued softly, filling in the silence that had since grown between them. “What was it that you has said all those months ago?” He let out another small laugh. “Oh, _right_ —that I never gave you affection least it benefited me in some way. You were, in fact, correct.”

The anger that had been quietly receded from the recesses of Tenzou’s chest, soft and unbidden, suddenly bloomed outward and without hesitation, he snapped again.

“ _Why_?” he chided. “Why would you do that to someone?”

Kakashi was still for a moment, before he retracted his gaze, finally breaking eye contact.

“Because I’m selfish?” the other man mused lightly. Tenzou felt himself scowl, but Kakashi paid him no heed and continued on.

“To give myself credit, I did attempt to avoid you for the most part—but I don’t think you understand how unavoidable you are as a person to me, Tenzou.”

“And so somehow that makes it okay for you to— _to use me!?”_ Tenzou’s voice had spilled forth in reverent anger, hot and white like warm coals stoked by a fire. “God forbid that I’m a real person, with real emotions, Kakashi—but you must have known that I _liked_ you. And yet you continued to seek me out at your leisure _knowing_ that I would give in!”

The other man nodded ever so slightly, a disquieting look marring his otherwise blank face.

“I didn’t say it was right,” Kakashi told him headily.

“No,” Tenzou replied hotly. “It wasn’t.”

Kakashi appeared to have suddenly grown very weary, and unexpectedly, he let out a long and drawn out sigh.

“Tenzou—,” he said at long last. His expression appeared pained, but Tenzou did not relent and merely eyed the other man with an unwavering intensity that spoke volumes of his agitation.  

“You _know_ I’m not the best person to be around…socially,” Kakashi started, tones of discomfort eking out his voice. “In fact, the whole village probably knows this. I read porn in public. I’ve treated my students less than reasonably. And when I resigned from the ANBU, you confronted me afterwards and told me I was the worst person you ever knew. And I know that this doesn’t make it okay or excuse the way I’ve treated you, but I _am_ trying.”

Tenzou blinked and suddenly he too was very tired. He was still reeling from his hangover and this, compounded by Kakashi’s sudden and unexpected emotional transparency had left him fatigued. Wordlessly, he reached for the cup of water from his bedside, from which he took a quiet sip from before setting the glass back down. He then turned back to Kakashi, eyes half-focused and lidden.

“Genma said that you’re fucked up too,” he finally conceded. “And…I found myself agreeing with him. I just—I…” He let out a frustrated sigh and threw his head back, pressing it against the wall. “I told myself I was done with you, Kakashi. After all these years, I wanted to move on.”

Kakashi nodded, his lips drawn into a thin albeit understanding smile before standing up.

“I understand, Tenzou,” Kakashi said in kind. “I would be wanting the same thing if I were in your position.”

Tenzou found himself nodding, but unbidden, he was hesitant to see the other man leave.

“Kakashi—,” He paused for an unnatural amount of time, quietly searching within himself for what exactly it was he was trying to say. Then, without meaning to, he found himself sighing again.

“I don’t want to do this again if it’s just going to be like it was,” he finally asserted. Kakashi was near the door, but he paused, and then wordlessly he nodded.

“I can’t promise you that I’m a good person to be with,” the other man started slowly. With steady strides, he had returned to the bedside and had carefully sat back down. “But I don’t think I can be without you,” he finished tentatively.

Tenzou in return nodded quietly, a reticent calmness settling throughout his chest and tempering his breathing. Kakashi however had leaned forward again, and while the proximity of the other man’s closeness should have been altogether unnerving, Tenzou felt undisturbed and remained motionless and restful.

“You know, the position as my bodyguard is still available…” Kakashi murmured, his face now mere inches from his own. A careful hand brushed his cheek, cupping the smooth contours of his jaw and Tenzou closed his eyes. He felt himself sink in to the others touch—such a familiar feeling, he thought distantly—and then, without hesitancy, he felt himself give in.

“Is it?” To his own ears, his words felt distant albeit unreserved. Kakashi nodded, a quiet, “ _yes_ ,” escaping his mouth before his lips brushed carefully against his own. It lasted only a few seconds before the other man carefully pulled back and Tenzou, unwittingly, felt himself smile.

\---

The unwieldy porcelain veneer that shielded his face felt unnaturally heavy after such a long term of absence. In discomfort, Tenzou shifted it quietly to the best of his ability, repositioning the mask ever so slightly to the left before letting his arms fall back to his side. Then, with little brevity, he resumed his post. The cool air of the rainy season continued to nip at the exposed skin of his arms and this too felt unnatural. He did not however move and instead found himself carefully watching the exterior door that lead to the secretary’s alcove outside of the Hokage’s office.

Beside him, Kakashi was languidly flipping through paperwork—Tenzou could not ascertain as to whether the man was actually digesting it, however the speed at which he worked indicated that he was in the very least taking the time to get the general legist of what he was reading. Without hesitancy, the man signed another sheaf of documents before setting it aside and picking up the next one in the pile on his desk.

Tenzou exhaled. The position as the Hokage’s bodyguard was a monotonous one—there was little excitement in the way of action, and beyond discreetly listening to the stream of people that filed in out of Kakashi’s office, he spent most of his days standing attentively and making mental notes of possible threats that came in the way of disgruntled shinobi and the occasional bereaved citizen.

He then realized that without meaning to, his hand was again fiddling with the edge of the mask and he internally scolded himself, although not before allowing himself to adjust the heavy veneer for a second time in the short period since starting his shift. His return to work had not been instantaneous—despite Kakashi’s offer, the other man had insisted that he visit the hospital for ongoing treatment. It was only after he had been given a clean bill of health some time later that Kakashi had allowed him to don the ANBU uniform once again.

Beneath the mask he scowled. He was once again touching the porcelain veneer, unable to remedy the heaviness that it placed against the flush of his skin.

“Mah Tenzou—take off your mask.”

He turned ever so slightly and found Kakashi leaning back in his chair, his gaze tracing the spot where his gloved fingers touched the white edge of the porcelain. Instantaneously, his hand dropped and he found himself growing hot.

“Senpai,” Tenzou started uneasily. “You know that I’m supposed to remain anonymous—,”

“—I said take off your mask,” the other man replied flippantly. “That’s an order, as your Hokage.”

Tenzou scowled, but found himself complying. He dropped the mask from his face and set it down carefully on the desk next to the pile of paperwork that Kakashi was currently ignoring.

“Happy?” Tenzou huffed.

“ _Very_ ,” the other man replied, eyes crinkling mischievously.

“You shouldn’t be paying attention to me,” Tenzou went on to say, irately. “I’m not here, remember?”

“It’s hard to focus on paperwork when my bodyguard—who is supposed to remain motionless, might I add—is fiddling with their mask every two seconds,” Kakashi rhymed off easily. Tenzou in turn felt himself flush and watched in embarrassment as Kakashi picked up another sheaf of paperwork and stared at it for all of two seconds before sighing and setting it back down.

“What time is it?” Kakashi suddenly queried. Tenzou shifted to his right, gaze catching the ticking face of the clock behind Kakashi’s desk.

“10:23,” Tenzou told the other man, realizing what the other man was attempting to do.

“I’m hungry—let’s go for lunch.”

Tenzou balked, readying a protest.

“Kakashi—we _just_ got here and—,”

“—Hokage’s orders,” Kakashi waved him off. He was smiling, Tenzou noted, the curve of his cheeks rounded visibly beneath the fabric of his mask. Tenzou sighed and ran an exasperated hand through his hair as Kakashi pulled away from the desk and readied himself to go.

“Besides,” the other man mused. “It wouldn’t look good on your record if you stayed here and I was somehow killed while getting a snack.”

Tenzou scowled, but obliged in following Kakashi to the door.

“You’re the Hokage,” Tenzou shot back. “I doubt you’d let that happen so easily.”

Kakashi only response was laughter and Tenzou responded in kind by shaking his head. It was only then that he realized he had forgotten his mask. Rolling his eyes, he returned to the recesses of the office and plucked up the porcelain face piece off the desk, carefully returning it to his face. When he turned around, he realized Kakashi was already gone—the other man had left without him—and Tenzou in aggravation, sprinted after him. It was going to be a long day, he intoned, and as always, Kakashi was making his job difficult for him.

 


End file.
